South Sudan resumes oil production
April 8, 2013, 12:53 pm

250,000 to 350,000 barrels of oil a day is expected to be pumped from South Sudan through Sudan [AP]

South Sudan has resumed its oil production, ending a row over transit fees with Sudan.

This marks a crucial breakthrough in relations between the two neighbours after sectarian clashes last year.

South Sudan had suspended crude production in January 2012 citing that Sudan was asking too much for transit.

South Sudan boasts proven oil reserves amounting to 7 billion barrels and the export of hydrocarbons accounts for 98 per cent of the country’s budget.

The country is landlocked and depends on Sudan’s ports for crude export.

South Sudan offered Russian oil and gas company Gazprom to join a number of oil and infrastructural projects in February this year.

“The oil is now flowing,” Stephen Dhieu Dau, South Sudan’s oil minister, said on Saturday as he flicked a switch to restart production at a ceremony in the Thar Jath field in Unity state.

Some 250,000 to 350,000 barrels of oil a day is expected to be pumped from South Sudan through Sudan.

The two countries agreed at negotiations in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa in March to resume oil production and implement other agreements following months of talks, Al Jazeera news reported on Saturday.

South Sudan proclaimed independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011 and became the newest member of the United Nations.

When the country was separated, South Sudan took 75 per cent of Sudan’s oil with it.

57 founding members, many of them prominent US allies, will sign into creation the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank on Monday, the first major global financial instrument independent from the Bretton Woods system.

Representatives of the countries will meet in Beijing on Monday to sign an agreement of the bank, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. All the five BRICS countries are also joining the new infrastructure investment bank.

The agreement on the $100 billion AIIB will then have to be ratified by the parliaments of the founding members, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a daily press briefing in Beijing.

The AIIB is also the first major multilateral development bank in a generation that provides an avenue for China to strengthen its presence in the world’s fastest-growing region.